September 22, 2011

Marty Beil, executive director of the 23,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union representing largely blue-collar workers, said none of the units in his group will seek recertification....

To win the recertification election, unions must get 51% of the vote of all the members of their bargaining unit, not just the ones who take the time to cast ballots - a much higher bar than state elected officials have to clear to win their offices.

"It means that in the future decisions will be made in the best interest of the public and the best state employees, but the radical employees or the underperforming employees will have much less say," he said.

Here's the old "What's Disgusting/Union Busting" chant as recorded by Meade in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda, originally posted on February 16th:

The "quite a lot higher than state reps" analogy is wearing thin and was never apt. As far as the news itself goes, it was utterly predictable if you know even a handful of public sector union members.

But if the dynamic Grothman describes occurs, over time there will be fewer and fewer employees who want the protection of the union. That is, the "underperforming employees" are thinned from the ranks. It will be harder to get to 51% for the union when those employees are not in the total.

The reality in the IQ bizzes I've been involved in my entire life is that the egghead techies have no desire to be in a union.

Egghead techies make good money. If they're fast on their feet, and learn new technologies quickly, they're always on the move, looking for that highest hourly rate.

The only advantage to tying your destiny to a single employer or a union is a consistent, guaranteed paycheck. Living with the peaks and valleys of boom and bust means more personal freedom, less ass kissing and (the downside) big fluctuations in income.

"Ann Althouse said..."Oh, I suspect they are not done, simply regrouping."

But if the dynamic Grothman describes occurs, over time there will be fewer and fewer employees who want the protection of the union. That is, the "underperforming employees" are thinned from the ranks. It will be harder to get to 51% for the union when those employees are not in the total."

Meh. That's not going to happen. Public workers in WI are covered by very strong civil service protections. While a lot of the crap they got away with is gone with collective bargaining, what's left is still Club Med versus the private sector.

Bottom line is that the unions suffer by not being able to have mandatory and automatically collected dues. This is just more proof that this "Solidarity Forever" bullshit is just that. The union members don't want to pay dues, now don't have to pay dues, so now won't be paying dues.

Advocates of so-called "collective bargaining" always compare the union, in the role of exclusive bargaining representative, to the role of government. Just as in government, the minority has to go along with the majority, so in a "bargaining unit."

So carry that analogy through:

> government has the power to tax; union officials claim the power to force people to pay union dues.

> government has police power: it can punish you for violating it's laws, it can arrest you, and through you into jail, even execute you if the crime is heinous enough.

What do union officials do?

They fine union members who step out of line; they beat people up who cross picket lines...and sometimes people do get killed.

yeah but they're union zombies, which means you're safe during manditory break times, and they will mill around outside your house waiting for the rep from the "push down the barricaded door"union to push down your barricaded door.

Again it is shown that when people have the choice they decide in favor of keeping their money instead of handing it over to a union. Once the dues are no longer deducted from the paycheck the reality of who owns the money becomes clear. The tax code in the U.S. would be considerably different if every week or two taxpayers had to stroke a check to the govt. like to the power company.

Lest anyone ever think of softening towards those poor Union folks, consider this anecdotal, but based on first-hand knowledge, tale.

A State Security Guard was petitioning against what he deemed an unfair supervisory practice. He demanded 'advance notice' for surprise inspections. Part of the reasoning: a sleeping security guard, startled awake by the inspector, might accidentaly shoot him.

We had a couple of classmates die in a car accident back in high school. We took up a collection, got permission from the school administration (including the principle) to plant two commemorative trees with a small plaque installed on a very small concrete slab next to them. All with volunteer help, tools, and materials.

The janitors filed a union grievance because THEY were the only ones supposed to do grounds-keeping.

"Trooper York said...Its hard to have a recertification of the union when your members are too lazy to vote. Just sayn'"

Not it at all. It's not the union members at issue here. The union doesn't want to go to the effort of a vote. A) Because it costs them money for what they no would be a failed effort. B) They know that their members would vote "no" eliminating the illusion that this all because of Walker blah blah blah

unions must get 51% of the vote of all the members of their bargaining unit, not just the ones who take the time to cast ballots - a much higher bar than state elected officials have to clear to win their offices.

I like this idea.

If you don't get 51% of the whole population to get up off of their dead butts and vote, then do away with the legislature.... and bring the governance back to the local level where people are more engaged.

Because obviously if no one cares enough to vote, then who needs the organization.

"unions must get 51% of the vote of all the members of their bargaining unit, not just the ones who take the time to cast ballots - a much higher" number of employees to intimidate, even Hoffa cannot supply enough goons and cement boots to do the job.

Dust Bunny Queen: in the United States of America, we have the right and the freedom to vote and not to vote. Not voting is a right we are free to exercise. Some of us would like to sit on our dead butts on those chilly Nov. days. But abolish the legislature and keep all governance local is a great idea. A greater idea is to thin out the US Congress. One less Congressman, a whole lot less hanger-ons to feed from the public trough.

Was there not recently a change to the way unions had to count the votes. I thought that they used to count 51 percent of the total votes to agree to contracts or recertification. Then it was changed to 51 percent of the total number of people in the union. This royally pissed of the union goons who wanted the Delta employees to unionize and they still had enough employees vote against unionization.